


the disciple

by sunflowersforhyuck (thedawnbeforethesunrise)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Attempted Murder, Blood, Character Study, Gore, Horror, Knives, M/M, Murder, Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Serial Killers, Small Towns, Violence, graphic depictions of violence and murder, stalking mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedawnbeforethesunrise/pseuds/sunflowersforhyuck
Summary: In which Renjun is a child of the moon, running in pearl shine and splashing crimson with his blade, and Jaemin blesses their small town of corn and grain with his mere existence, the ultimate target.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48
Collections: Challenge #2 — tricks; treats; and terrors





	the disciple

**Author's Note:**

> My first horror fic ;; this was truly a rollercoaster to write (finished in one sitting at 3 a.m. <.<) but I like how it turned out in the end. I love small town fics :'')) Anyway, please enjoy!
> 
> tw // violence, murder, knives, animal violence, gore

Scoured in front of Renjun are splashes of moonlight on trampled brown dirt, roughly pulled tufts of sheep wool, and the glaring spots of blood on his shoe.

His palm burns. The accidental gash that sits there splits open to reveal a slivered canal filled with blood, gurgling to the surface, gliding into the etchings on his hand. The blood is dark, rich and heady and velvety, and he swallows thickly at the sight. A cautious, dirty finger pulls at one side of the wound, and he marvels at the way his skin bends as a whole organ.

The moon is a surgeon’s table light and he’s bare to it, bare to the heavens above him and the creeping sensation that wells inside of him like a gaggling river after a day’s rain. His heart is racketing off his ribs, violently and more alive than ever. His bones are spit clean and slick with a feeling he can only describe as pleasurable, and as sick and twisted as he knows it should feel, Renjun can only close his mouth and look right in front of him.

It’s his first kill that stares back, crystal orbs as pretty and still as a rock that’s never lived.

⤞⤟

“It’s a shame, isn’t it? She was such a beautiful girl.” Jaemin whispered, face too close and breath too warm. It hits Renjun at a sensitive spot.

Black draped on bodies, a handmade coffin resting in a perfect ditch; it’s death presented in the finest clothes and gift wrapped for delivery. The girl was murdered yesterday, around the same time that Renjun had killed his first, a sheep from his neighbor’s farm. The entire town is here to weep for the girl, but only the man next door will mourn his sheep. Renjun wishes he had mutilated the beast instead.

Jaemin is a childhood friend, but to Renjun these days, Jaemin is everything he wants. If he could, he would devour his friend, slowly and longingly, saturate himself with the scent and touch and taste of the town’s most handsome bachelor. The funeral proceeds in front of them in quiet hushed tones, but Jaemin’s voice is God to Renjun’s small ears, sending his heart speeding in time with all his blood that swirls like a flooding river. He’s almost dizzy, cerebellum ripped out of his brain and the world tilting like he’s on a seesaw. _Jaemin, Jaemin, Jaemin._

It’s the third murder this month. It sets Renjun on fire, the smoldering flames licking at his belly and making him antsy. Here is a small town of farmers. Oh, who could it be, the women gossip, who would kill such a beauty? Who would kill such a strong man? Who would stab a child?

Renjun takes a deep breath. This moment is sanctity.

⤞⤟

In the barn, up the broken ladder and in the corner above his cows, Renjun keeps his knife and newspaper clippings.

Up here is where Renjun becomes nobody. A nameless being, faceless and without a body, he lets himself steep in the thoughts he keeps smothered from his daily farm boy life, as if afraid they’ll spill out in ecstatic joy, chatter that won’t shut up. No one knows, and anyone who does will face a twist of his blade through their diaphragm.

With delicate fingers, Renjun tediously tapes up the latest newspaper clipping. There are no photos, but he doesn’t need photos. He can simply imagine the murder in his head, smell iron and hay and the floral notes from her fair skin. They say she was stabbed repeatedly and then mangled. He can imagine the brash and savage to-the-bone cuts. Gashes that criss-cross sporadically on her full chest. Her form floating in the smoothest blood from her own veins.

He stands back to admire the clippings, running butterfly fingers across the articles, tracing faded bold titles that shout at him. These murders, from the noble blade of an enigma, shimmer in the unworthy shell of his barn. They glint like the creek in the summer, the waters clear and refreshing. Renjun would drink from them if he could, sink into everything they could offer him, teach him.

If only he could ask. There are so many questions he would ask, if given the chance. How do you keep them quiet? How do you know when is the right time? Where do you place the body? Why do _you_ want to kill?

Renjun drops to his knees, lets himself feel the dull pain that diffuses from the impact of bone on wood beams. From his pocket, he pulls out a sheep’s eye, one from his first kill. A memory of him cleaning the orb rushes through him pleasantly. He cradles it in his small hands, leans down and precariously places it in a crack on the floor.

His eyes flutter close as he basks, yellow sunlight buttery and the comfortable warmth of autumn wrapped around him.

⤞⤟

There is no news on the beauty. There is another murder.

In the same day, Renjun cleans the barn, puts up the fresh news clipping, and meets Jaemin at the creek. They kick their feet even though the water doesn’t carry the heat of the summer sun, instead burning them to a numb cold. Renjun admires the pale, thinly pulled skin on Jaemin’s ankles, the stretch across his feet.

“Go in. I dare you.” He is burning on the inside, a fire that torches him from deep in his gut.

A tousle of brown hair and Jaemin is stepping in the creek. His long fingers, thick and smooth, curl around the back of his shirt and he pulls it above his head in one swoop, a magician revealing his act for the world to see.

The lines of his back taunt Renjun sweetly, following broad shoulders that taper to a waist which holds the subdued touch of many women past. Too many times is the answer; Renjun has thought about running his blade along those curves too many times. He has thought about the hummingbird pulse on Jaemin’s delectable neck, about feeling the blood perilously and frantically sprinting for its life, for Jaemin’s precious life. The fantasy makes him shiver.

The boy walks deeper into the water. It absorbs him, swallowing up to his knees, his thighs, his rear, before he drops and sinks into crystalline, becoming the creek itself.

When Jaemin resurfaces, shivering and chest heaving with shallow breaths, his slow smile is tinted red and purple like the bruises that Renjun dreams of marring onto his perfect flesh.

“Your turn.” is all he says, drawn out words that stir something.

⤞⤟

This time, it’s a stray cat.

No one will miss it. Renjun is satiated for the week, reveling in this small morsel for his pleasure. He takes his time, fingers soaked in the slick balmy liquid and things that squirm and squish at the push of his blade. He feels giddy, euphoric, tipsy as he was that day at the funeral, with Jaemin breathing down his neck like the tease he is.

He goes for the head. Crushes the skull in his hands, the satisfaction of the crunch and crumble. He digs the heel of his loafer into the head for fun, grinding it down until he sees gray tufts of fur, stray whiskers that stick to the grooves of rubber on his shoe, mush and more mush. He then decides he’ll stick to using his knife.

The body is dropped into the creek, an offering to the moon. An offering to Jaemin.

⤞⤟

_YOUNG SOUTHERN TEEN FOUND MURDERED ON SIDE OF THE ROAD. CAR FOUND IN_

Renjun had torn the clipping this time in his haste. It’s still a beautiful text, a sacred tale, one part of a whole scripture that he may as well have tattooed on his eyelids.

That day, he nearly shits himself when Jaemin piles his limbs, laced in sculpted muscle and carved for temptation, on top of Renjun, head resting dangerously near the junction of his legs. He must know what he’s doing because he looks up with a glint like the north star. Jaemin has thick long lashes and Renjun is reminded of the cow he killed the other night. A dangerous smile, so alluring and painfully mysterious that Renjun wants to kiss him and cut his lips off. Jaemin shifts closer, breaths hot and even as he falls asleep like this, wrapped around Renjun.

God is Jaemin Na.

⤞⤟

_The town murderer is nameless, faceless, like me. No body, no being._

_We. Are. Superior._

_I can make Jaemin superior too. I can take his body away from him. We can be together this way._

_X_

⤞⤟

Something changes.

On a mid-October night, hands no longer the color of human flesh but of animal blood, Renjun stills. The gears that languidly turn when he’s in this state, happy and drunk on the ecstacy of a kill, have stopped moving.

He’s bored.

There is no reaction, no notice or warning. Renjun is suddenly, extremely, tired. And anxious.

It surges through him like a shot. Electricity floods his veins, tingling from his fingertips, and he slumps in his kneeled position in front of the moon, hovering over his fresh kill, a baby calf. Glazed like a donut, the creature’s eyes show terror and indifference. It is this look that used to send Renjun to the skies in joy, this helpless skeleton of a once living creature, paralyzed muscle and tendon slovenly hanging from its ivory.

But now, no longer.

_What if it’s time?_

_My first human?_

The thought blooms new life in him, brings color and light to his world. The indigo sky is crisper, the stars starkly brighter, and the moon seems to glimmer coolly in approval. It’s time. It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time.

Renjun bends to kiss the creature on its eye.

⤞⤟

They soak in each other’s presence.

Limbs tangle on the bed, and Renjun is nearly drunk on the scent, the scent of Jaemin which wafts and suffocates him. He can’t breathe. There is only so much he can take, a soulless and faceless being. Jaemin wraps long arms and legs around Renjun, squeezing like a python trapping its prey. Soft worn quilt cushions them and the moon offers a thin bar of pearl shine on the wall next to Jaemin’s bed.

Pretty. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

It’s time, it’s time, it’s time.

_Not yet._

Renjun makes due for now. He slides a finger along Jaemin’s torso, revels in the shivers and jerks, before following onto the front, down the chest cavity, past the valley of abdominal muscles, stopping at the navel before crawling back up. He slides a hand, lightheaded and cautiously, around Jaemin’s neck. It’s so _warm_ , so large compared to the animals, but the pulse on his jugular is small and strong in this vast expanse of fair, smooth flesh. This body lives and exists on the thrum of a pulse which fits under two fingertips.

They don’t move for a long time. Jaemin’s eyes flutter close and his hands come up to gently caress Renjun’s arm. Their eyes meet and for a second, Renjun thinks that he imagines Jaemin is challenging him to do it, right now. _Kill me, Renjun. Choke me. Throttle me and throw me and snap my neck. Crush my throat. Watch my tears. Keep my soul safe._

_Not yet._

It’s too dangerous. Jaemin will have to wait for now. Renjun isn’t ready.

The time isn’t right. He needs more time.

This kill, his perfect kill, will have to wait.

⤞⤟

Another person is murdered by the Sleeper; it’s the moniker coined by the local paper. Renjun already has the name carved into the barn wall, right above the newspaper clippings.

He wonders if Jaemin will hate him for this. The thought seizes him and frightens his rabbit’s heart, but it subsides because he knows this is what is best for Jaemin.

The next week, Renjun stalks a person in the next town over, for practice. He met her at some bar, a petite woman in her early twenties, and had followed her out of the doors. She is staying in a motel, a risky place, and the thought of getting caught startles Renjun. He lets her go.

There is no time. No time.

⤞⤟

Nameless, faceless, soulless.

He couldn’t do it.

Renjun can’t look at his hands, for when he does, the image that is burned into the cortex of his brain hisses and appears before him. His small hands, slender fingers and tiny square palms, wrapped tight and fast around someone’s neck, a stranger from another town. A person. A human. His knife was ready, already prepped on his belt.

But he failed to use it.

It was a swift kick to his groin, a stupid oversight, and then Renjun was off into the night, sprinting under the moon. He has disgraced her presence tonight, and he pays for it with his own shame.

He makes excuses. He reasons that it was not a kill he was passionate about. It was not the right person. It was not the perfect person.

Next time, he will succeed.

⤞⤟

_THE SLEEPER DOESN’T SLEEP. COUPLE FOUND DEAD IN THE RIVER._

Fresh black ink. It stands out amongst the sea of browned clippings, the tapestry that hangs in weathered pages and on the tails of sunlight.

Two kills in one night. Two people dead by dawn.

Renjun is enlightened. Inspired.

_It’s a sign, it must be. It’s time. This is the right time._

_It’s time, it’s time, it’s time._

His eyes close and the sun blesses him.

⤞⤟

The night is perfect.

Sunday, the Lord’s day. Still dressed in his Sunday best, Renjun heads to Jaemin’s home with something potent under his skin, burrowed in his flesh and festering. It’s the desire, infected and swollen, which pulsates like a second heart within the walls of Renjun’s soul. It keeps him awake at night, makes him run his plans through in his head like a mantra.

_Knock him out. Slam his head into the bedpost. Stab him. Kill him._

Though Renjun will play the devil’s advocate tonight, Jaemin is dressed like he rules hell and its demons. White silk shirt, fitted black slacks, dark brown hair brushed. He didn’t wear this to church today; Jaemin changed for this occasion, as if he knows he will be ascending tonight by Renjun’s hand.

They talk for a bit, drink some wine. It’s strange, because usually they drink beers, but Jaemin with red cheeks said he forgot to buy more today. The flush of color reminds Renjun of his task tonight. Excitement surges violently, aggressively, and Renjun thinks he could laugh until he cries. Bliss is on its way.

Conversation lingers in the living room, until a comfortable silence befalls them. The October moon, her glory and blessed light which always elucidates the path of truth for Renjun, is in full body tonight. Renjun smiles secretively into his wine glass, his blade under his shirt pressing coolly against him. Jaemin is watching carefully, as if balancing him like the wine glass on his fingers.

“What’s gotten you smiling, Renjun? You seem happy.” Jaemin grins warmly, and Renjun can’t help but wonder how beautiful that smile will be frozen in marble.

“Nothing in particular. Just happy to be in your company.”

There is a pleasant chuckle, a downturned gaze, before Jaemin tilts his head at him and Renjun sucks in a breath. The knife is insistent on his flesh, impatient to get the show going.

A knock on the door sounds off like an ugly noise cracking into good music. Renjun hides a scowl as Jaemin curiously looks to the door. “Would you mind getting that, Renjun? You’re closer to the door.”

_It’s time, it’s time, it’s time._

He complies and goes to the door, wine glass left behind. The floorboards creak in protest at Renjun’s heavy footsteps, as if crying out. Licks of ashen shadow, his own distorted body, scale the door before he can reach out and grab the handle. The walls and windows flicker hastily in soft orange, the light of gas lamp flames trembling like Renjun’s stuttering heart.

The wind is knocked out of him. Wood smashes his cheek roughly and he gags under the pressure that presses into his windpipe. His ribs crunch and he screams into someone’s quick hand, a hand that yanks his head back in a strong and locked hold. His body is humming, vibrating like a quivering lamb. Sheer panic spikes in his blood, and for a second, he wishes he practiced.

An arm curls around his waist and Renjun sees the moon’s stars right in front of him. He squirms and fusses, arms flailing as he screams and kicks, cacophony rattling the house.

His head is pulled back and slammed into the door. Haze fogs his vision and he feels himself floating, dizzily and dreamily.

His feet thrash as he’s dragged.

_Stomp, stomp, stomp! THUD!_

He’s being pulled into the depths of the kitchen, encased and gripped by clawed black shadows. They loom menacingly, sneering and laughing at his pathetic form.

Renjun screams again, but this time, he is yanked roughly. His shoulder dislocates and he cries out like a helpless animal. It sounds off like a siren into the night, a siren no one will hear.

All he sees are eyes, familiar and pretty, lashes which flutter. There is no glint.

A tousle of his brown locks, Jaemin is tiny diamonds that bead along his hairline, a thin trail that sparkles along his neck. Tainted lips, pretty and red, like the petals of a fresh rose. Cold like marble.

A blade slides tauntingly along Renjun’s quivering mouth. He can’t feel anything.

He’s bare, stripped to his bone, tendons cut clean. Jaemin flashes shiny teeth.

“Sleep, my beautiful Renjun.”

Nameless, faceless, soulless.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave comments and kudos ahhhh if you can though no pressure :'))) happy spoopy season~ Also ty to my beta for reading it through and assuring me that it’s all good ;;


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